41 years after its release, the Wham! single takes first place in the United States, overtaking Mariah Carey
When Last Christmas arrived in stores on December 3, 1984 no one could have predicted that that song would become, four decades later, a true global Christmas classic. And much less no one could have predicted that the song by Wham! it would go to number one on Billboard’s Global 200 in 2025. Yet, it happened in recent days.
Although associated with the atmosphere of this time of year, Last Christmas is not a traditional Christmas anthem. The song is about a love gone wrongtold through the emotional filter of the Christmas period. It’s not a song about a “happy” Christmas, but about what Christmas often amplifies memories and regrets. The contrast between happy music And melancholy text it’s one of the elements that makes Last Christmas so powerful and universal.
At the time of its release Last Christmas reached second position in the English charts, where the charity single was in first place Do They Know It’s Christmas? rellified by Bob Geldof’s Band Aid project.
In January 2021 he finally managed to reach the top of the British charts, after 36 years, setting the record for the longest it took a song to reach number one. The week before Christmas 2022 it topped the UK charts for the second time and reached sixth position for the first time in the prestigious Billboard Hot 100 of the best-selling singles of the week in the States.
